Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki village, close to Tokyo. Like their elders before them, they have a modest life in harmony with their environment. The ecological balance of the site is threaten by the plans to build a ‘glamorous camping site’ in the nearby nature park, offering city dwellers a comfortable escape to nature. It profoundly affects the lives of Takumi and the village inhabitants.
Completely tuned to the rhythm of nature, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s new film does not obey the laws of capitalism that it denounces. The duality of the early part of the story gives room to a more nuanced exploration of everyone’s aspirations, and to an absolute climatic urgency.
"Hamaguchi’s movie is closer to a prose poem, in which the larger building blocks of narrative might not fit together in the expected way but be as mysterious and extraneous as glancingly small details. "
Peter Bradshaw The Guardian 04/09/2023
Grand Jury Prize, FIPRESCI Prize, Premio CinemaSarà - Special Mention, Premio Fondazione Fai Persona Lavoro Ambiente Award, Ca’Foscari Young Jury Award, Venice - Biennale 2023, 2023, it
Toronto - TIFF 2023, 2023, af
Best Film, Asian Film Festival Barcelona, 2023, af
Best Film, London Film Festival, 2023, gb
Ryüsuke Hamaguchi
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi holds a master’s degree in cinema and directed his first film, Passion, in 2008. In 2010, The Depths was a great success and was screened at the TOKYO FILMeX. In 2015, Senses, which lasts over five hours, won two awards at the Locarno Festival. Hamaguchi’s reputation abroad was greatly boosted. In 2018, Asako I & II competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The same fate befell Drive my car in 2021, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
